


Puppy Eyes Don't Work On Jessica Jones

by ObservationalObsessive



Series: Puppy Eyes [1]
Category: Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Everyone Loves Peter Parker, Feel-good, Fluff, Friendly Peter Parker, Friendship, Gen, Jessica Jones is immune to puppy eyes, Jessica didn't ask for this, Jessica's too smart for that, Secret Identity Fail, but she's not actually complaining, mostly - Freeform, or so she says, we don't believe her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 01:08:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12121251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObservationalObsessive/pseuds/ObservationalObsessive
Summary: The first time Jessica meets Peter, he's doing homework on top of a dumpster.It doesn't take long to lose count of the number of times she's met him.Jessica Jones never asked to be friends with a bouncy little puppy-eyed teenager but apparently Peter Parker is always looking for new friends.





	Puppy Eyes Don't Work On Jessica Jones

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote this kinda randomly this weekend... It's pretty different than most of what I write, I think, but I hope it's good. :)

The first time Jessica meets him, it’s a brisk November day and he’s sitting by himself in an alleyway as if it’s normal.

Jessica Jones has never claimed to be an expert on teenagers but she’s fairly confident that most of them don’t spend their time sitting cross-legged on top of filthy dumpsters while they do their homework.

He’s flustered when she startles him nearly enough to make him topple over with her short, “hey!” He almost seems confused about something and she doesn’t think it’s as simple as the fact that some woman is talking to him in an alleyway. There’s something else there and, though she notices, she decides she doesn’t care.

“There a reason you’re sitting on that dumpster, kid?” She questions him with raised eyebrows in an unimpressed stare.

“Uh, I - I don’t know, I mean - No, I’m - Sorry,” he stutters, ears going bright red as he starts to gather up his notes and textbook.

“‘Sorry’?” She echoes him. “For what? You think you’re sitting on my house or something?”

“I - What?” He cocks his head to the side and his eyebrows scrunch up together. “No, I just… thought you were mad at me.”

She doesn’t bother resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “First of all, you don’t even know me so why do you care if I’m mad at you? Second, I’m not mad. I’m just curious. And possibly suspicious.”

He nods rapidly. “Oh, right. Ok. Uh, well, I’m just - just doing my homework.”

“On a dumpster?”

He nods again as confirmation. His expression says he doesn’t think that’s weird.

“Right,” Jessica says slowly, then nods back and starts to leave. “Well, I’ll let you get back to that then. Didn’t mean to bother you.”

“It’s ok, I’m not bothered,” he assures her quickly, as if she’d been apologizing. “You can stay here.”

Apparently her expression asks her question for her so she doesn’t even have to voice it before he’s answering.

“It’s just that I figured you came down here for a reason. I don’t want to be in the way of whatever that is.”

She sighs and frowns at him. “I came down here to find out why there was some kid doing homework on a dumpster. Don’t why I wasted my time though, since I still don’t _really_ have an answer. Do you not have a home or something?”

Not that it matters to her…

“No, no, I live with my aunt. She’s great,” he says through a grin. “I’m just finishing up a little stuff before I… do some other things. I didn’t want to forget, that’s all.”

It still doesn’t make any sense but Jessica decides she’s spent enough of her time on this pointless and weird conversation so she just nods as if this all suddenly seems reasonable to her. When she leaves, she returns the kid’s wave with a half-hearted handraise.

She only glances back briefly and sees that he’s already back to his school, feet now dangling off the top of the dumpster and kicking against the side. He’s chewing on the eraser end of his pencil and furrowing his brows at the pages of his textbook.

Jessica decides it’s a good thing she doesn’t care because this kid is just so dang mysterious without even trying to be… She hardly gives the encounter another thought after that.

 

The second time is in January, just after New Years.

It’s snowing, though barely sticking at this point. She’s just wrapped up a case that had stretched out far more than it should’ve and she’s ready for a break. It doesn’t take long for her to come up with an itinerary for the evening.

First, she’s going to go buy a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Maybe two. After that, she’ll head back to her apartment, lock the door, and maybe watch some crappy tv for a while. Then she’ll finish off the bottle and take a much deserved nap.

The store isn’t too crowded. There are a few families with little kids walking around and Jessica makes a note to avoid ending up behind any of them in the line if she can help it. Even though it’s not that crowded, there’s only one register open out of two and the line is already a little long when she walks in. If it’s going to be a long wait, she doesn’t want to behind a herd of children.

The second she’s in the door, she makes a beeline for the alcohol and grabs what she wants without bothering to browse their picked over selection. It doesn’t look like they’ve restocked since New Years.

On her way to the checkout line, she makes a quick detour to grab another jar of peanut butter and a bag of english muffins. After that, the line has grown by a handful of people and she glares as she bites back a groan.

She doesn’t end up behind toddlers but there’s a chance the two teenaged boys talking animatedly about the new Star Wars movie from the month before that she _is_ behind might be even more painful.

Both of them have armloads of food. The one doing most of the talking is holding mostly junkfood like bags of chips and a few candy bars. The quieter one has things like eggs and apple juice and a bottle of caesar dressing. He’s also clutching a grocery list written on a small sheet of brightly colored paper and Jessica suspects they were sent for groceries and got some stuff of their own as well.

“I’m just saying I didn’t think the ending was any worse than the last one,” the quieter boy says then, his voice sounded light-hearted and amused while his friend is just a little too passionate for someone talking about Star Wars. “I can think of way worse cliffhangers.”

Jessica frowns when she realizes that she recognizes the voice. Suddenly, messy brown curls on the back of his head are familiar too and she remembers where she met him before.

If she had to guess, he’s exactly the kind of person to remember her and say something. She doesn’t want to know if she’s right but she finds out anyway when he drops a bag of baby carrots and turns around to pick them up.

“Sorry,” he says as he stands back up - miraculously not dropping any of the other items precariously held in his arms - and the second their eyes meet she can see the recognition. His face lights up and he grins at her. “Hey!”

He says it like they’re friends or something. As if he knows Jessica better than just remembering one time she’d noticed him sitting on a dumpster.

“Who’s this?” his friend asks, frowning in confusion.

“Oh, right, sorry,” he chuckles. “Uh, Ned, this is - sorry, what’s your name?”

She sighs and actually tries not to roll her eyes _too_ much. “Jessica.”

“Cool,” he responds as if it is. “I’m Peter. This is Ned.”

Ned offers a smile and looks like he’s about to wave before remembering his armload of junk food.

“Uh-huh,” is all they get out of her.

Her thoroughly uninterested expression does nothing to deter Peter, however, and he just keeps talking to her.

“So, kinda funny running into each other again, huh? I’m glad I know your name now. It’s kinda weird when you don’t know what someone’s name is, you know? Like, not that I’ve thought that much about meeting you but every now and then I just think, ‘I wonder what she’s up to now’ and I remember that I don’t know your name. Oh, it’s not creepy, by the way,” he adds in a rush. “I think about all kinds of people I’ve met. I just wonder all kinds of stuff about their lives. Like, what’s their job? What do they do for fun? Are they happy? What if they died five minutes after I met them and I’ll never know? Do they have a family? What’s their favorite movie? I don’t know, it’s just weird to think about how even if you have just the tiniest bit of information about someone they’re still an entire person and you’ll probably never know anything else about their lives, you know?”

Jessica makes herself nod, though she raises her eyebrows at him and practically grimaces. Man, this kid talks fast. “I mean, that’s still a little creepy, even if it’s not just me.”

“Nah, he’s been doing that since we were kids,” Ned assures her.

Two thoughts enter Jessica’s head at the same time.

  1. They’re obviously still kids.
  2. That _still_ doesn’t make it not creepy.



“What a relief,” is what she says instead.

She raises her eyebrows even more when Peter actually laughs at her practically sneered comment.

“Sorry, I know it’s a little… Yeah, creepy, I guess,” Peter says.

The creepiest part is that now Jessica can’t stop thinking about it.

The boys don’t realize it’s their turn until Jessica rolls her eyes in annoyance and nudges their shoulders to turn them around. They both fumble embarrassingly through the process of actually checking out and, once they’re finally done, Peter gives Jessica another smile and a wave as they leave with their bags.

Of course, now Peter’s ruined her evening because now all she can think about is how much she doesn’t know about him and it’s entirely his fault for making her think that much about things…

 

The third time is barely two weeks later.

She doesn’t even realize it’s him at first. And who can blame her for that when he’s decked out in a skin tight red and blue suit? It’s not as if she can see his face.

It’s late and she’s walking home with her fists buried deep in her pockets and her scarf arranged so it covers as much as it can. She huffs in annoyance at the cold bite of the air on her face every few minutes.

There’s some idiot drunk guy hanging around her and she suspects that he thinks she doesn’t notice as he slinks along in the shadows. He’s not really doing anything though so she ignores him as she’s not in the mood to do anything about him.

But then he’s walking right up beside her and and attempting to _flirt_ or something, although his slurred words are hard to understand.

She gives him a disgusted side eye and sneers an eloquent, “eff off,” at him.

He only laughs as if she hadn’t clearly meant it and resumes his attempts at flirting with her. When he bumps his arm against hers, it’s unexpected enough that she stumbles slightly to the side.

The second she’s regained her footing, she fixes him with a glare and is about to push him off the sidewalk when a small blur of bright red and blue swoops in and takes care of the problem that is this drunk man.

Once the idiot is webbed to the nearest streetlamp and they’re both ignoring his drunken babbling, Spider-Man turns towards her and actually _waves_.

“Hey, there. You ok?” he asks her and she’s made all too aware of the youthfulness of his voice. Seriously, has he even hit puberty?

“I’m fine,” she tells him flatly and watches him consideringly.

“Good. That’s good,” he sighs, apparently relieved. “Uh, let me walk with you.”

She scoffs. “Yeah, no thanks, kid. I’m good.”

“Please? I’d really feel better if you let me.”

Jessica’s willing to bet there are some puppy eyes happening behind that mask. She’s equally willing to bet he’s used to those puppy eyes getting him what he wants.

“Whatever,” she mutters and starts walking, shoving her hands back into her pockets. “Just don’t annoy me.”

Spider-Man hurries to walk next to her, matching her pace.

It doesn’t take long for her to realize that she recognizes his voice. Not only that but the absurd jitteriness of his very _existence._ And when he slips up and calls her by her name she knows she’s right.

This is Peter. Peter, the annoying kid with puppy eyes who she has definitely not thought of at all in the past two weeks.

He talks about some of the other “bad guys” he’s stopped that evening and tells her about the handful of villains he’s faced who posed more of a threat than the drunk guy on the sidewalk. Then he hurries to amend his statement and says he just means it’s a different kind of threat and that guy was totally out of line.

By the time they get to her building it’s even colder out and she wonders how warm that suit of his could possibly be. Apparently she says it out loud because the next thing she knows, he’s explaining the built in heating system and makes her feel his arm so she has proof that it really exists and works.

She rolls her eyes but does it anyway.

He comes in with her and rides up the elevator, still chattering and nodding his head embarrassingly to the annoying Christmas music still playing in the elevator. Her apartment building doesn’t usually have elevator music but someone had demanded they play Christmas music during the holiday season and she’s not sure if it’s broken and won’t stop now or if whoever’s in charge of that sort of thing is just too lazy to turn it off.

When Peter walks her all the way to her door, she sighs in defeat and invites him in, saying she _might_ have some instant hot chocolate that Malcolm keeps there and if she does then he can have it.

“‘Alias Investigations’,” he says as she unlocks her door and she realizes he’s reading the window pane. “Cool, so you’re a detective?”

“Apparently,” is all she says, swinging the door open and walking in, leaving him to follow her if he feels like it.

He does.

She pulls off her scarf and jacket and tosses them onto the couch. Peter follows her to the kitchen only somewhat hesitantly. They left the door open so Jessica won’t be surprised if Malcolm comes in when he realizes she’s home. She thinks for a half-second that she hopes that won’t freak Peter out and then decides she totally hopes it does just because it would probably be funny.

“Oh, good, I’ve got a couple packs of this crap left,” she says when she opens a mostly empty cupboard and finds two tin foil pouches of chocolate powder sitting loosely on the bottom. The pulls one out and has it made in a couple minutes.

“Thanks,” Peter says when she hands it to him. “The suit’s pretty warm but it’s still winter so I’m never going to mind hot chocolate.”

“You might want to take the mask off so you can drink it,” she suggests, then rolls her eyes when he starts to protest the idea. “I know it’s you, Peter. Taking off your mask isn’t going to make a difference.”

She can tell he’s gaping at her even when he doesn’t remove the mask from his head. She raises her eyebrows expectantly and he huffs before tugging it off and setting it on the kitchen counter, not bothering to smooth down his slightly wild curls.

“How did you find out?” He’s not _quite_ pouting but, let’s face it, yes, he is.

“Come on, kid, I’m a private investigator,” she tells him blandly, going about getting herself an entirely different drink.

“You were investigating me?” His exclamation comes out sounding like he can’t decide if he’s offended or excited by the idea.

“No,” she shoots him down with another eyeroll. “I’m just saying I’m observant. I figure things out.”

“Oh. Right,” he says, nodding and finally drinking the hot chocolate she gave him.

He ends up staying until he finishes the drink, even though she made it in a throwaway cup so he _wouldn’t_ feel inclined to stick around - no pun intended. But she strangely doesn’t really mind his presence too much.

She tells him she has some work to do so he sits on the worn out couch and manages to keep relatively quiet save for a few questions about what she’s doing and what her case is about. She answers them as concisely as she can and the next thing she knows he’s finished his hot chocolate and has moved on to helping her behind the desk. He’s a smart kid, actually, and points out a couple things she hadn’t noticed yet.

By the time he goes home, which he tells her is Queens, Jessica’s decided she wouldn’t mind running into him again.

 

Jessica loses track of how many times she meets him pretty quickly after that. She wonders if he does too.

Now that he knows where she lives, he stops by relatively frequently. He’ll swing by during patrol for a quick rest or to snatch some of her food and it’s really a wonder she ever has any in her apartment now that Malcolm and Peter have combined forces against her.

Malcolm loves Peter after he meets him for the first time and claims that Jessica is less “prickly” around the kid. He says Peter makes her relax and that he’s good for her. She’s not sure she agrees but she doesn’t _mind_ Peter’s company.

Sometimes he comes over after school to work on homework when his aunt is working late and he doesn’t feel like being home alone. It turns out he’s pretty handy and actually _enjoys_ fixing things up around her apartment so he does that while she works some days and it’s a definite plus to the friendship they’ve apparently formed.

It’s sometime in June when they go out for ice cream for the first time and then it becomes a bi-weekly occurrence and Jessica almost always ends of paying for the two of them - three when Malcolm tags along. Peter, in true fifteen-year-old form, orders some new and wild flavor every time.

Sometimes they give each other a hand in their various crime fighting endeavours or Jessica’s cases. She discovers that he’s very useful for sending into tight or high up spaces to take pictures for her.

Peter just about loses all cool when he finds out she has super powers. He says that he and Ned have heard of her but he didn’t put two and two together, which she teases him about for months considering she figured out who he was in less than a half an hour and he wears a _mask_ and uses a dumb superhero name.

Jessica doesn’t know when it gets so… _emotional_ but at some point they start talking about topics like Peter’s uncle being shot and Jessica’s family dying in a car crash _she_ survived. If you’d suggested such an occurrence before, Jessica would’ve thought she would be very uncomfortable with seeing Peter break down and start crying but when it actually happens… she just finds herself wanting to hug him and make him feel safe and then she _does_.

It turns out they can relate in a lot of ways. Too many ways and ways she wishes they couldn’t… But they do and it just makes them closer. Because they both understand so much of what they’ve both been through, helping each other is easy to do. It doesn’t require a lot of words because they _know_ already. But if there are words, they know what to say and what not to say.

It’s nice, actually...

He tells her about just about every aspect of his life and she doesn’t feel like she has much to talk about but she tells him things too. They notice little things about each other and just _know_ each other so well.

Jessica never expected to be friends with a teenager but then Peter Parker happened… and no, even after years of him growing on her, his puppy eyes still don’t affect her.


End file.
